


Stop Being So Cute

by howboutinotdothis



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: M/M, Notes, Probably ooc, evan not believing someone could like him, idk man, secret admirers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 05:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howboutinotdothis/pseuds/howboutinotdothis
Summary: A tiny scrap of paper flutters out, landing on the sticky hallway floor. Probably another one of the notes Jared has taken to slipping in his lockers between classes. They usually involve dick jokes or sarcastic commentary on Evan’s behavior during their shared chemistry class—because apparently Evan needs to be told how pathetic it was when he dumped watered down hydrochloric acid on his hands and refused to tell the teacher, preferring instead to let his hands tingle uncomfortably until he could wash them after class—or whatever juicy piece of gossip that’s been circulating through the student body.Instead, he finds a barely legible phrase scrawled in the messiest chicken scratch Evan has ever seen. The writing looks like it was erased and rewritten about a dozen times, making it seem like whoever penned it wasn’t sure how to phrase what they were trying to say—or whether they should say it at all.





	Stop Being So Cute

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos/crit always welcome!

Evan’s fingers shake as he spins the dial on his locker, groaning when he overshoots the third number and has to start inputting the combination all over again. _One to the left to 18, two to the right to 3, three to the left to 45._ He sucks in a deep breath before trying to pull his locker door open. It makes a horrible metal-on-metal screeching noise, but it pops open nonetheless, revealing messy binders stuffed to the brim with crumpled loose leaf and battered textbooks littered with tiny doodles of dicks. In Evan’s history textbook, one of the previous owners used the eyes and nose of every pictured historical figure as a base for drawing a dick. While Evan can appreciate the effort there, the fact that he has to scramble to cover up his book whenever a teacher passes by his desk does nothing to help his anxiety and he wishes that he could Wite-Out the copious amounts of male genitalia, but that would probably end in him having to pay to replace the textbook and his comfort is not worth a couple hundred dollars.

A tiny scrap of paper flutters out, landing on the sticky hallway floor. Probably another one of the notes Jared has taken to slipping in his lockers between classes. They usually involve dick jokes or sarcastic commentary on Evan’s behavior during their shared chemistry class—because apparently Evan needs to be told how pathetic it was when he dumped watered down hydrochloric acid on his hands and refused to tell the teacher, preferring instead to let his hands tingle uncomfortably until he could wash them after class—or whatever juicy piece of gossip that’s been circulating through the student body. He sighs as he leans over and collects the paper off the floor, bracing himself for a sentence or two on how ridiculous Evan looked when he was startled by a loud noise and nearly dropped his beaker.

Instead, he finds a barely legible phrase scrawled in the messiest chicken scratch Evan has ever seen. The writing looks like it was erased and rewritten about a dozen times, making it seem like whoever penned it wasn’t sure how to phrase what they were trying to say—or whether they should say it at all.

Evan gets hung up on the word “stop” for a moment—he doesn’t do much of anything, so there’s really nothing for him to stop doing. Except breathing or eating. Maybe the way he chews is really offensive to somebody? It probably is—Evan definitely looks gross when he’s eating. He should probably stop eating at school. He’ll just…make up for it at breakfast and dinner. It’ll be fine. He doesn’t need anyone leaving hate notes about how he chewed with his mouth open at lunch one day; that would make the already stressful task of going to school even worse. Then, he continues through the note and lets out a quiet, amused huff. Someone must have gotten someone else’s locker number mixed up with his.

 _Stop being so cute_ , it reads.

The girl to his right seems like the type to have a secret admirer, so he looks around the empty hallway before sliding it into one of the cut outs in her locker door, glad that a) nobody felt the need to leave him a message about how gross he looks while he eats and b) he could return the note to its intended recipient without much fuss. He’s gotten a few notes meant for the girl with the locker beside him—he even got one of her carnations on Valentine’s Day of freshman year, which was a whole awkward ordeal that ended in her telling him he could keep the flower. The flower died a slow, dreary death in an old water bottle on the dresser in his room, but it was nice while it lasted. Sometimes he could almost pretend that someone had sent him a carnation—that someone could like him enough to do something like that for him.

But, of course, Evan’s not a total idiot, so he’s realized that’s never going to happen. Not in high school, at least. It’s already January of his junior year and he’s yet to make any friends besides Jared—and maybe Alana, if you’re willing to stretch the definition of “friend” some. And neither of them seem particularly interested in being his friend, let alone anything more than that. So, yeah, Evan’s not going to be getting any cute notes or carnations in his locker that are anything but an accident because some well-meaning kid mistook his locker for someone else’s.

Evan grabs his copy of _Othello_ from his locker, wincing at the loud ripping noise the cover makes as the book slips out from its tight spot between his trig textbook and his Spanish binder. He slams his locker door shut before heading to the library to sneak bites of his peanut butter sandwich while he studies for the quiz he has next period on the first act of the play.

Over the next few weeks, Evan starts getting a lot of notes for the girl with the locker next to him. They’re usually something sweet like _you have a really nice voice_ or _do you have any idea how gorgeous you are_ or a small doodle of a flower or a bunny or something cute like that. Every time Evan gets a note, he dutifully slips into his neighbor’s locker, wishing that whoever’s leaving these notes would realize that they’re putting them in the wrong locker and stop. Because, as much as Evan enjoys reading the sweet things this girl’s secret admirer writes, it makes him feel kind of…skeevy for reading something so nice and personal that’s not meant for him. It feels like he’s intruding on a private moment, but neither of the people having the private moment realize that he’s there, so he’s just there, awkwardly witnessing everything without any way to leave without being spotted.

A week before Valentine’s Day, Evan decides he needs to sort out this whole getting someone else’s notes thing. He wouldn’t be surprised if this secret admirer was planning to send this girl carnations, and Evan doesn’t need a repeat of freshman year, thanks very much. Tracking her down to try to get her the flower that accidentally went to him was a lot of work and made him anxious as hell for the whole week after that because he was worried she thought he was a crazy stalker, or something.

Evan’s noticed that the notes tend to appear sometime between fourth period and lunch, so he decides to leave a note for the mystery person explaining that this is not, in fact, that girl’s locker but hers was the first one to the right, so if whoever it was could start leaving the notes in the correct locker, that would be great.

He folds up the piece of loose leaf he wrote his message on and places it so that it’s peeking out of his locker, just enough so that the note writer will notice it when they’re slipping their note in, but not enough that it’ll fall onto the floor or that some random passerby will notice and take it.

As Evan leaves to go to trig class, he feels almost sad that he won’t get to see the notes anymore. They were the bright spot of his school day. Which is stupid because none of them were about him, none of them were for him, but sometimes it felt like they were. Like there was someone in this school who looked at Evan and saw someone worth liking instead of a high strung, anxious mess who couldn’t do a presentation without crying or throwing up beforehand and shaking hands or shuffling feet during. Like there was someone in this school who actually noticed Evan.

When he returns from trig class, his note is no longer sticking out of his locker and Evan feels a lot less relieved than he was expecting. It takes him four tries to get his locker open, fingers too clumsy to get the combination right, and when he finally yanks open the locker door, a note comes flying out like it did the first time so many weeks ago. Evan picks it up, expecting it to be something like “oh, my bad, dude” or “why’d you wait this long to tell me, asshole.” He deserves the second one. He should’ve left a note telling the person that they had the wrong locker the moment he realized the notes were becoming a daily thing. But he didn’t. Because Evan Hansen is an asshole with no regard for other people’s feelings.

He unfolds the note, bracing himself for the worst.

 _I don’t have the wrong locker,_ it reads. _I thought putting these notes in your locker would make it obvious that these are for_ you _but I guess not._

_P.S. you look gorgeous today, Evan Hansen_

Evan stares at the note for a while before closing his locker gently and slipping the note in his pocket. He walks to the library in a daze, completely oblivious to the boy with the long hair and the bad attitude from his AP Language class watching him from his own locker, lips quirking up into a small smile.


End file.
